Mom’s Skincare Tips: All About Eyes

My friends always ask my Mom about her skincare and makeup tips. That’s ’cause she’s basically a genius at these things and worked in the skincare industry for a long time. The latest question was “do I use eye cream at 28 years old?” Her unedited email answer (which I think could be helpful to us all, and is already in perfect blog format) is below:

Me and Mom herself

Hello Ladies,

You asked about good eye creams. There is such a bevy of creams on the market how do you sift through all of them? First, it’s a good idea to consider using eye creams in your late twenties–gets you in gear for when you get older and HAVE to use them.

First, what do you want the eye cream for? There are the concerns women have that they may want to address:

1. Is it for puffiness? There can be times when you have this concern, could be you ate too much salt one night, drank too much or it could be allergy related. It will have ingredients like green tea, egg whites, peptides. Many times products in this category will have a metal tip at the top to cool the skin.

2. Dark circles. People get dark circles due to lack of sleep, allergies or it can be hereditary. When its hereditary, suck it up and buy eye concealer (IT cosmetics’ Bye Bye Undereye is the best) They contain caffeine, Kojic acid, Vitamin C… (they also contain some ingredients that temporarily diffuses light).

3. Fine lines – Okay crow’s feet is a big one. Included in the fine lines mix can be laugh lines and you DON’T ever want to get rid of those since its a sign of a good life and a happy person. For deeper lines there are eye creams on the market that contain retinol but you probably don’t need that yet. And remember, if you ever use retinol you MUST use a face sun block during the day. Retinol can be harsh and can cause skin irritation. (Best sun products on the market in my most humble opinion are from the Roche de Posay line. Love their face blocks.)

4. Moisturize – It’s probably important to moisturize the eye area but be cautious with it. Always choose an EYE cream. Don’t moisturize around the eye with a face cream. It can be too thick for that area of the face. The skin area around the eye is thin and will not take a whole lot of moisture. This can be a reason that one develops little white dots around the eye area. They may be using an cream not suited for eyes or using too much. (I used to see that a lot in customers).

Yes, you can address all concerns in one eye cream. But if you don’t have to and want to target just one of those concerns you can choose an eye cream for one concern too.

One of the things I always look for when picking any kind of skincare purchase is choosing something from a skin care line. I don’t buy skin care from a color line. Why? Because skin care should be the company’s primary concern, not a secondary thing. Also, I choose skin care from a company that is large. Why? Because they usually have the research and their own labs and researchers to come up with good skin items. For example, I like Philosophy stuff because it’s a skin care company and their labs are in Arizona. A line like Bobby Brown or Mac, not so much since they were color lines first, then came the skin care.

So I’ll list some skin care lines with varying price points so you can pick yourselves. I don’t think you need an expensive eye cream at your ages. The price point for eye creams with retinol is higher because of the ingredient and I really don’t think you need that yet.

Suggested lines:

1. OTC/Drug Store – Cera Ve, Roche de Posay

2. Moderate Price Lines – Philosophy, Clinique, Murad, Algenist (Hope in a Jar Eye/Philosophy is a good starter cream, so is Clinique’s Pep Start) Paula’s Choice is also a no-nonsense line.

3. Higher end – Shiseido, Estee Lauder, Ren

There are some eye creams that address all of the issues – fine lines, darkness, puffiness so you can go with one that addresses everything or target concerns.

Mary in Manhattan

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Heyooo - I’m Mary and I’m here to show you the real, liveable, New York City - the one you’ll be excited to share with your friends. See what’s truly AWESOME to eat and do in NYC, no matter what your budget. Plus, I’m always on the lookout for noteworthy things to do when I travel to other cities around the world. So get out of Times Square and discover something cool with me!
P.S. - all opinions are my own